How to Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking

Bio

Emma Llansó (@ellanso) is the Director of CDT’s Free Expression Project, which works to promote law and policy that support users’ free expression rights in the United States and around the world. Emma leads CDT’s work in advancing speech-protective policies, which include legislative advocacy and amicus activity in the U.S. aimed at ensuring that online expression receives the highest level of protection under the First Amendment. Recognizing the crucial role played by Internet intermediaries in facilitating individuals’ expression, she works to preserve strong intermediary liability protections in the U.S. and to advance these key policies abroad.

Emma also leads the Free Expression Project’s work in developing content policy best practices with Internet content platforms and advocating for user-empowerment tools and other alternatives to government regulation of online speech. The Project’s work spans many subjects, including online child safety and children’s privacy, human trafficking, privacy and online reputation issues, counter-terrorism and “radicalizing” content, and online harassment. Emma is also a member of the Freedom Online Coalition’s Working Group on Privacy and Transparency Online, which is developing best practices for transparency reporting by governments and companies regarding government demands to Internet companies for content removal and access to user data. Emma works with CDT’s Global Internet Policy & Human Rights Project on advancing policies that promote free expression in global fora; she also works with the Global project in advocating for decentralized, multistakeholder approaches to Internet governance.

Emma earned a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Delaware and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Emma joined CDT in 2009 as the Bruce J. Ennis First Amendment Fellow; her fellowship project focused on legal and policy advocacy in support of minors’ First Amendment rights in the US. She is a member of the New York State Bar.

Resources

News Roundup

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai releases draft orde rot overturn net neutrality

Ajit Pai released a draft order to repeal the net neutrality rules last week, which the Commission will vote on at their December meeting. The order would overturn the 2015 net neutrality order by reclassifying internet service providers as “information service” providers rather than Title II “common carriers”. Telecom companies applauded the new order while others, on the right and left, decried the draft order which will give telecom carriers broad discretion to throttle, block or require payment for services it doesn’t favor. The order would also preempt the states from enacting their own net neutrality legislation. Cecilia Kang reports in the New York Times.

Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in cellphone tracking case

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments this week in Carpenter v. U.S. In Carpenter, the FBI surveilled a defendant whom they suspected of acting as a getaway driver for several armed robberies in Detroit. The FBI tracked Carpenter without a warrant, using his cellphone location data. In the lower court, the FBI argued that it had broad authority to track anyone’s location at anytime. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the FBI. Now the Supreme Court will consider the applicability of the so-called “third party doctrine” which holds that once you communicate your private information to a third party–you lose your privacy interest in that information. The third party doctrine already applies to things like your banking records. So the question before the court–for the first time–is whether that doctrine applies when you communicate your location to a cell tower. Matthew Tokson summarizes this case in New York Mag.

FCC not done relaxing media ownership rules

Two weeks ago, the FCC relaxed its Newspaper-Broadcast Cross-ownership rule. Soon, the agency may also relax the ownership limit that prevents a single corporation from reaching more than 39% of the national audience.FCC Chairman Ajit Pai circulated a proposal to his colleagues last week. If it is adopted at the December 14th Open meeting, the FCC will then commence to review the rule, which could take several months. The move is seen as being helpful to Sinclair Broadcasting, which is seeking to acquire Tribune Media. The combined company would reach 70% of U.S. households. Keach Hagey reports in the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft announced that it is attempting to provide internet access to Puerto Rico and other U.S. Virgin Islands that were devastated by Hurricane Maria. The plan is to provide the service via TV “white spaces”, which are the unused frequencies between tv stations.

Quartz: Android collects location data at all times

Keith Collins at Quartz reported that Android devices collect location data and send it back to Google even when the location data option is switched off. Privacy advocates are concerned that if Google can access the information, hackers can too.

Multiple states are investigating a 2016 Uber data breach

Uber is under fire yet again. This time it’s because the company apparently suffered a massive data breach last year and didn’t report it to anyone: drivers, customers, regulators–no one. Uber said the breach affected some 57 million customers. In addition to inflaming the Federal Trade Commission investigation which was already in progress, the company has already been sued by one user for deceptive business practices, for not disclosing the breach.

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